Social Value: A Study in Economic Theory, Critical and ConstructiveAnderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
General
Social Value: A Study in Economic Theory, Critical and Constructive
Anderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
Value
The question of the relations among values we shall discuss rather briefly,
not that it is unimportant, but that much of it is familiar. Values may be
complementary--as when several objects are all essential to one another if
any of them are to be of use. Values may depend on other values, as the
value of the means depends on the value of the end, which is its essential
"presupposition." Values may antagonize each other, and here two cases are
to be distinguished, which differ so much in degree that the difference may
be regarded as qualitative. Values may be in their nature quite compatible,
so that nothing in their character prevents the realization of both, but
there may not be _room_ enough for both, owing to the limitation of our
resources,--as when the young lady of our illustration had only six seats
at her dinner, and so was obliged to exclude some of her friends. But the
values may be qualitatively incompatible. We may be unable to realize them
both because the one involves a different sort of _self_ from the self that
could realize the other. This is the typical case in ethical values, where
the presuppositions, especially in ethical crises, involve the whole
personality. In case of such conflicts, say between the value of Sabbath
observance and the allurement of Sunday baseball in the case of an
orthodox "fan," we may have, as before indicated, a mere mechanical haul
and stress, in which one or the other wins by sheer force, to the very
considerable discomfort of the uneasy victim. But the conflict may lead to
a reexamination of the presuppositions of each value, to a process of
bringing each into more organic relation to the whole system of values. In
this process, other values may be called into play, may reenforce one or
the other of the two alternative values. And, after such a process, both
values may be different from what they were. There may emerge some higher
value which comprehends them both, or one may be reduced to a minor place,
and the other may prevail. Values are no more permanent than any other
phase of the mental life. Constant transformations, even though not always
fundamental transformations, take place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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